Beqaa Valley

Hana in the Beqaa Valley (It's pretty dry and arid now after the summer)

Now that the Syrians have left Lebanon, this has gained an infinite number of picnic spots. Those soldiers often occupied strategic points (as soldiers tend to do, ahum), so you couldn’t go there. So yesterday I went some friends on a tour along a coupe of them in the Beqaa Valley. We also visited an authentic Lebanese adobe (mud brick house) in Terbol, a village lying between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=7606. It's Lebanon's first eco-museum, says the advertisement. (part of the of the National Heritage Foundation)

Last time I did that was last fall, with my sister in-law. On our way out of the village, we made a wrong turn, ended up in a lettuce field of lettuce where women were harvesting. When we got out of there, with 500 heads of lettuce in our car, we made another wrong turn and ended up on a Syrian military base. We drove onto the grounds of what we thought was an abandoned building to make a U-turn, when my sister-in law announced; “Look, there’s an army tank there.” Some silence. “uh, and there. And there. And there. Oh shit, I think we’re on an army base.” The Syrians were not people you messed with. There was no law above the Syrians; they were the law. So regardless of what they would do to you – and the horror story are abundant – there’d be no way to go and complain. Just suck it in and live with it.
Now this is happening to Basjaar and Co, in Damascus, so the Lebanese feel they’re having some of their revenge. Not much else to add, just some pictures.